Colorado
Windstorm batters Colo., leave tens of thousands without power; restoration expected by Saturday night
BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — Colorado’s foothills were hit by hurricane-force winds Friday morning, with gusts reaching 112 mph in Boulder County. The storm caused damage, outages, fires, and travel disruptions, but no injuries were reported.
Earlier in the week, on Wednesday afternoon and evening, a previous windstorm brought gusts up to 109 mph, knocking down trees and power lines and sparking fires near Yuma.
No serious injuries were reported from the fires near Yuma. Authorities believe no homes were lost. All fires were contained by Thursday night after burning just over 14,000 acres.
Power outages
Xcel Energy carried out another public safety power shutoff (PSPS) on Friday in response to hurricane-strength winds in the Front Range foothills, as crews worked around the clock to restore power to thousands of customers after initiating a Wednesday PSPS.
Xcel said PSPS conditions subsided as of 5 a.m. Saturday. However, about 57,207 Xcel customers were still without power.
Xcel Energy
The utility company said it’s aiming to restore power to customers by 10 p.m. Saturday, but warned that the outage could extend into Sunday for some customers.
“The safety of crew members is paramount as they work to restore power. Xcel Energy asks customers to help keep crew members safe as they work diligently to restore power as quickly as possible,” wrote Xcel Energy in a release.
Xcel said it has identified 396 customers who have been without power since the initial outage on Wednesday. The company said these customers are being prioritized as restoration efforts continue followed by other high-needs areas.
David Zalubowski/AP
Xcel set up resource centers and charging stations in Evergreen, Gilpin County, Lakewood, and Idaho Springs.
On Saturday, Gov. Jared Polis urged residents to avoid directing their frustration at Xcel’s frontline crews over ongoing outages, saying workers are working long hours to restore service.
“As many Coloradans await the return of power to their homes and communities, I want to urge everyone not to take their frustrations with power being out on the hardworking men and women who make up the Xcel crews. The company and its crews are working around the clock to ensure our safety and to restore power. While I have expressed great frustration with Xcel and there’s much room for improvement in communications about what’s going on and timelines, I am grateful for Xcel’s frontline workers and all those people working to restore people’s power. Please thank them if you see them,” Polis said in a statement.
CORE Electric Cooperative, which provides power to parts of Clear Creek, Jefferson, and Park counties, said that 9,281 customers lost power during Friday’s storm.
CORE said the return of service for most members will likely not occur until later in the day on Saturday, as more favorable weather will help with restoration efforts. However, strong winds are still expected, and many trees have been weakened during the storm.
Damage and closures
Reports of downed trees, power lines, and street poles in and around Boulder and across the foothills during Friday’s wind event flooded emergency dispatch.
In Longmont, Friday’s windstorm severely damaged the roof of Longmont Climbing Collective, 155 Pinnacle Street, prompting the closure of the business as crews work to replace the roof.
Denver7
Longmont Climbing Collective said in a Facebook post that it hopes to reopen Sunday or Monday, but it may take longer. No injuries were reported.
Downed trees and street poles blocked roads and trails across Boulder County, causing major closures, including portions of CO 72, CO 93, US 36, and CO 128. But some reopened by nightfall.
Denver7
In the Allenspark area of Boulder County, a propane tanker on CO 7 rolled over after hitting black ice on Friday, trapping the occupants and prompting an evacuation and the closure of the highway.
According to the Allenspark Fire Protection District, high winds and leaking diesel fuel at the crash scene made the situation particularly sensitive and extended the time needed to resolve it.
Allenspark Fire Protection District
Due to concerns about possible propane leakage, residents and businesses were evacuated. However, no propane leakage was ultimately found.
No major injuries were reported.
Friday’s storm also closed schools across Boulder and Jefferson counties, as well as Evergreen.
Here are the top 10 wind speeds recorded on Friday from the National Weather Service:
- 112 MPH — 3 NW Marshall, Boulder, CO
- 110 MPH — Sunshine, Boulder, CO
- 102 MPH — 2 WNW Niwot, Boulder, CO
- 99 MPH — 1 NE Crisman, Boulder, CO
- 97 MPH — 1 S Wallstreet, Boulder, CO
- 96 MPH — 2 SW Hygiene, Boulder, CO
- 95 MPH — 1 NE Crisman, Boulder, CO
- 95 MPH — 3 S Carter Lake, Larimer, CO
- 94 MPH — 3 N Berthoud Pass, Grand, CO
- 92 MPH — 5 N Boulder, Boulder, CO
DIA impacts
Friday’s strong winds created a rough start to the December holiday travel season at Denver International Airport.
FlightAware reported more than 1,200 delays at DIA on Friday—the most nationwide—along with more than 80 cancellations.
Denver7
On Saturday, the numbers dropped considerably, resulting in only 88 reported delays.
Several pilots reported moderate-to-severe or even severe turbulence on Friday.
The Federal Aviation Administration defines turbulence as “severe” when it “causes large, abrupt changes in altitude and/or attitude. It usually causes large variations in indicated airspeed. Aircraft may be momentarily out of control.”
Back‑to‑back windstorms batter Colorado, leave tens of thousands without power
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Four years after the fire, recovery is still incomplete for some Marshall Fire victims. A Colorado man is joining wildfire survivors from across the country to push lawmakers to make changes and provide support for survivors still rebuilding.
Recently, a historic $640 million settlement was reached with Xcel Energy, but the Coloradans who lost everything in the Marshall Fire might not be receiving all the money that they’re owed. Some settlements could be taxed, while others were paid in full.
“I was the fourth responding fire engine to the Marshall Fire. By the end of the night, I was triaging homes in the neighborhood that I grew up in,” said former firefighter Benjamin Carter. “I’ve seen how much the community’s hurting, and I just wanted to do whatever I could to help.”
Carter is now fighting for those who lost their homes, including his mother. He’s working with an organization called After the Fire, joining up with wildfire survivors in Oregon, Hawaii and California. This week, Carter flew to Washington, D.C., to speak with lawmakers about how they can help survivors rebuild.
In 2024, lawmakers passed the Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act, which exempted wildfire survivors from taxes on related settlements, among other tax relief. But the bill expired last week, shortly after Xcel agreed to settle over the Marshall Fire.
“If the people don’t have to pay taxes on the damages, then it helps them rebuild,” Carter explained. “Some of the smaller attorneys still haven’t received payment, so all those people will be subject to those taxes; all the attorney fees, and what the actual settlements end up being. And, of what they’re actually getting at the end of the day, that’s been a huge challenge.”
Congress has already proposed extension options. But Carter hopes that by sharing their stories, legislators will act before survivors lose anything else.
“With a lot going on in Washington and everything, the representatives don’t always know about all the issues. And so, we want to educate them on this issue and hopefully gain their support,” Carter said.
Colorado
Colorado attorney general expands lawsuit to challenge Trump ‘revenge campaign’ against state
Attorney General Phil Weiser on Thursday expanded a lawsuit filed to keep U.S. Space Command in Colorado to now encapsulate a broader “revenge campaign” that he said the Trump administration was waging against Colorado.
Weiser named a litany of moves the Trump administration had made in recent weeks — from moving to shut down the National Center for Atmospheric Research to putting food assistance in limbo to denying disaster declarations — in his updated lawsuit.
He said during a news conference that he hoped both to reverse the individual cuts and freezes and to win a general declaration from a judge that the moves were part of an unconstitutional pattern of coercion.
“I recognize this is a novel request, and that’s because this is an unprecedented administration,” Weiser, a Democrat, said. “We’ve never seen an administration act in a way that is so flatly violating the Constitution and disrespecting state sovereign authority. We have to protect our authority (and) defend the principles we believe in.”
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, began in October as an effort to force the administration to keep U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs. President Donald Trump, a Republican, announced in September that he was moving the command’s headquarters to Alabama, and he cited Colorado’s mail-in voting system as one of the reasons.
Trump has also repeatedly lashed out over the state’s incarceration of Tina Peters, the former county clerk convicted of state felonies related to her attempts to prove discredited election conspiracies shared by the president. Trump issued a pardon of Peters in December — a power he does not have for state crimes — and then “instituted a weeklong series of punishments and threats targeted against Colorado,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit cites the administration’s termination of $109 million in transportation grants, cancellation of $615 million in Department of Energy funds for Colorado, announcement of plans to dismantle NCAR in Boulder, demand that the state recertify food assistance eligibility for more than 100,000 households, and denial of disaster relief assistance for last year’s Elk and Lee fires.
In that time, Trump also vetoed a pipeline project for southeastern Colorado — a move the House failed to override Thursday — and repeatedly took to social media to attack state officials.
The Trump administration also announced Tuesday that he would suspend potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of low-income assistance to Colorado over unspecified allegations of fraud. Those actions were not covered by Weiser’s lawsuit, though he told reporters to “stay tuned” for a response.
Weiser, who is running for governor in this year’s election, characterized the attacks as Trump trying to leverage the power of the executive branch to exercise unconstitutional authority over how individual states conduct elections and oversee their criminal justice systems.
In a statement, a White House official pushed back on Weiser’s characterization.
“President Trump is using his lawful and discretionary authority to ensure federal dollars are being spent in a way that (aligns) with the agenda endorsed by the American people when they resoundingly reelected the President,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said.
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